Left Behind
by Drakosaurus X
Summary: When the Strawhats accidentally leave Zoro behind he has to find a way to catch up with them. And to make matters worse Kizaru has no plans for him to make it off the island alive. ZoBo


**A/N:** This is my first work (maybe my only), so don't be expecting it to be on the level of other authors writing. I ask that you please forgive any errors I make and please notify me if you spot any, so I can fix them. I know my writing isn't great.

**WARNING!! DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU HAVE NOT READ AT LEAST UP TO CHAPTER 511 OF THE MANGA!**

This fanfic will have major spoilers for the current manga arc and I would feel terrible if I spoiled it for anyone, especially because it's turning out to be the best One Piece has been in a long time.

Alright I'll assume that those of you that are still reading are up to date with the manga, if not I say again please leave (I _really_ don't want to be responsible for ruining this arc), I can't stress that enough. This fanfic takes place at the end of the Archipelago arc as well changes a few things about which I'll get to in a second.

Keep in mind I started writing this as of chapter 509 and made some adjustments so 510 would fit in with it too, but there's no way I'll be able to adjust it so Chapter 511 and onward fit it in. So everything after chapter 510 should be disregarded when reading this fic. I'll give a brief summary (a prologue of sorts) on the (made-up) events that basically lead up to the start of the fic after I finish this introduction. Also, for reference Chapter 510 is the chapter the Strawhats beat the pacifista and Kizaru defeats Drake, Apoo, and Hawkins. The start of this fic can pretty much be placed there. 511 and onward is what should be disregarded which is the chapter where Sentoumaru and Kizaru show up in front of the Strawhats and Rayleigh bailing them out.

Anyway this seems to be the first Zoro x Bonney fanfic, so I don't know if I should celebrate for making the first one, or feel sad because no one else likes my favorite pairing (after only 2 chapters with ambiguous hints towards it and only one of those chapters actually having them be in contact :P).

**Prologue:**

After the Strawhats defeated the Kuma clone in chapter 510 they decided it was best to split up and hide separately for the 3 days. On the final day Kizaru decided he was tired of playing around and started going after all of the pirates remaining on the island seriously (which would be the Strawhats, Kidd, Law, Bonney, Capone, and generic crews). Because of that all the pirates on the island were in a hurry to leave as soon as possible. Even the Strawhats were so rushing to get off the island, so much so that they forgot to do a head count and accidentally left Zoro behind. And the reason Zoro didn't make it in time is because he got jumped by Sentoumaru and had to fight him before anything else.

And that is basically where the story begins, so I hope you enjoy it!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the characters, names, places, or anything related to One Piece except for a few figures, video games, and DVDs (Funimation's version of course).

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**Left Behind**

**Chapter 1**

He ran as fast he could his body beaten and covered in blood and bruises, yet he still managed to keep moving as if he were perfectly fine following the directions of the vivre card given to him. Even Roronoa Zoro was not so hopeless that he would get lost when he had such a thing.

'_According to this thing I should almost be there._' He thought silently to himself. Suddenly pain from his wounds shot through him like a light. He immediately clutched his side where a big gash was visible, but despite that he never slowed his pace. "Damn that weird axe guy, if it weren't for him I'd be there already." He muttered under his breath.

He kept running enduring the pain determined to at the very least not be the last one to meet up. After running and running he reached a long line of docks and the vivre card was reacting in a way that indicated this must be the place. As he traversed the docks he looked around searching for the Sunny, but had no luck in locating her.

"This is weird." He said as he looked at the vivre card which was clearly indicating he was at the right spot. He continued looking when his jaw dropped to ground. He found the Sunny the problem was that it had already left and was nearly out of sight. "_**T-THEY LEFT WITHOUT ME!?**_"

He stood there with his jaw agape frozen in shock that he'd been left behind. A familiar voice came from behind him, and the man sounded a bit confused. "Huh?" The old man questioned. "Didn't you leave with the others?"

Zoro turned around to face the man which explained a few things. Since the man standing before him was the original owner of the vivre card no wonder it was reacting the way it was. More importantly he had to find a way to catch up with the others, which especially for Zoro and his sense of direction would not be an easy task.

"I was over in one of those taverns over there." Rayleigh said pointing to a line of shops directly behind them. "Then I heard some yelling and my curiosity got the better of me, but" He started to chuckle. "I never thought it'd be you or that those guys were the type to leave anyone behind."

"_**JUST SHUT UP!!**_" Zoro yelled growing agitated by the man. It was bad enough he was left behind like lost luggage and this senile old man wasn't helping anything.

"Alright, alright calm down. Now then let's think for a second, there must be something we can do. Unfortunately I don't have a spare ship I can give, so we'll just have to find another way for you to follow them, that shouldn't be too hard." He said, as he began looking around the harbor. "Ah! There we go." He pointed towards a pirate ship that had already been coated to make it to Fishmen Island. "Whoever they are, they should be headed to the same place as you. So, all you have to is make it aboard."

"You're telling me to steal a ship?"

"Well I guess you could if you wanted to, and were confident in your navigational skills." Zoro gave him a look that said that was out of the question. "Another option is to sneak aboard and hide yourself, it doesn't look like there's anyone on board right now, so you should be safe. If you do that you should be able to hitch a ride to Fishmen Island without any problems and meet up with your friends there."

Zoro let out a sigh looking over the ship. "I guess I really don't have a choice do I?"

"I'm afraid not, especially with Kizaru running around, it's best to keep low. So I would recommend you hurry up."

He sighed again. "Why does stuff like this always happen to me." He felt the pain rush through him again and immediately clutched his side.

"You gonna be alright kid?"

"This is nothing, I've survived worse. That stupid axe freak wasn't much compared to some of the other stuff I've dealt with."

"Axe freak?" Rayleigh asked intrigued.

"Yeah, some freak with a giant axe jumped me when I was making my way here. He put up a pretty good fight, but he wasn't that tough. What was his name again? I think it was Santa- no, Santo- no that's not it either, Sento-"

"Sentoumaru?" The old man interrupted.

"Yeah that was it, you know him old man?"

A grim expression came across the man's face. "If the man you fought was indeed Sentoumaru then we'll have to changes the entire plan."

"What? Why? I don't think he'll be coming after me anytime soon, there's no way he'll get up for a while."

"Sentoumaru himself isn't the problem, it's his uncle that is."

"His uncle?"

"Yes his uncle, who happens to be none other than Kizaru and when he finds out that you defeated his nephew he will use all his power to pay you back for it."

"Damnit. I'm not sure I can take an admiral in the condition I'm in right now."

"Idiot. You can't take on an admiral at all. Now listen closely, about the plan, you just go hide yourself on the ship and make sure not to be seen."

Zoro looked confused. "That's not really any different than the original plan."

"No, not really. Well not for you at least." Rayleigh smirked. "I was originally just going to go back to the bar, but now that the situation has changed I'll go keep Kizaru busy until you escape."

"You sure you can do that old man? I should be fine if I just stay out of sight."

He smirked. "Just who the hell do you think I am? I'm not just some brittle old man. I could beat Kizaru with one hand if I really wanted. Besides, it's been a while since I had a good fight, this'll be a good chance for me to loosen up." Rayleigh laughed as he brought his fist to his hand. "Anyway I'll go find Kizaru and keep him out of your hair. You just worry about hiding yourself now. The most important thing you can do now is make sure you make it back to the Strawhat kid and the others."

"R-right." Zoro managed to reply before running to stowaway on the unfamiliar ship. '_What is this? How could I have not noticed this before? The power that this man is emitting...it's on a completely different level than anything I've ever seen before._"

oOoOoOoOoOo

"Come on we need to hurry! We have to make get out of here before the admiral shows up." A rather large man with sunglasses urged as he and a group of others raced through the streets.

"Well you know I'd be willing to bet we'd already be there if _someone_ hadn't to stop to eat." A smaller man replied.

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?" The woman snapped back defending herself. "It's harder to find energy to run on an empty stomach isn't it? Besides where do you get off talking to your captain like that?"

"This is no time to be arguing you two, we need to pick up the pace!" The heavyset man replied. It was obvious he was the voice of reason in the crew.

After running for what seemed like hours they finally made it back to their ship without being spotted.

"Hurry and raise anchor, we're leaving right away." The woman ordered.

"Yes Captain Bonney." One of the crew replied as he ran to the anchor.

The atmosphere on the ship was very tense as they slowly drifted away from the archipelago. None of them could take their eyes off the harbor making sure that their escape went unnoticed.

Bonney let out a big sigh of relief. "Looks like that's over with, I'm think going to go take a nice bath." She said with a yawn and a stretch.

"Do you really think it's safe to relax already captain? We're still not too far from the docks." The large man questioned.

"Calm down. Even if we did get spotted we're still far enough away that they won't be able to catch up, so there's nothing to worry about. Now if you'll excuse me..." The girl said as she walked up the stairs and entered a doorway which led to a hallway which would eventually lead to the bath.

The bathroom was rather large in size and was decorated extravagantly with flowers. The bath itself was placed in the middle of the room and was round in shape resembling a hot tub.

She locked the door behind her as she entered. "I've been looking forward to this all day." She said happily as she undressed and walked to the tub and stepped in causing the bubbles to part as she slid into it.

"Nothing beats a hot bath to get your mind off things." She said as she sank deeper into the tub and stretched out her legs. She felt her foot hit something at the bottom. Startled she reached in to pull whatever it was out of the water and find out just what exactly she had kicked. She got a good grip on it and whatever it was it was oddly heavy for something just sitting at the bottom of a tub. She gave one good pull and managed to pull it out of the water, however it was not something she would have ever expected.

Her eye began to twitch uncontrollably, as she stared at the man she had pulled out of her tub by the hair on his head. Apparently the man found the bottom of a filled bathtub as comfortable as his own bed which was proven by his loud snoring. She wondered if she were dreaming as she stared in shock and confusion at man who had apparently not only came aboard her ship unwelcome, but had also somehow found a way to fall asleep in her bathtub.

The man's snore grew louder as if to agitate her further and if that was the intention it certainly worked. She pulled her arm back along with the man and with one quick motion launched him into the wall across from her causing a loud crash upon impact.

The green haired man stood up groggily shaking himself off. "Huh? Is it morning already?" He asked still in a daze not fully aware of what was going on.

"So, then" the voice of a woman interrupted his cluttered thoughts causing him to cringe. "Care to tell me just what exactly you're doing on _my_ ship...Roronoa Zoro?" She asked in a serious tone, indicating that she meant business.

Zoro managed to pull himself together and quickly thought of the best way to deal with the situation. He turned to face the woman giving a smirk. "What would you do if said I'm here to kill you and steal your ship?" He asked hoping his bluff would work, what it would accomplish even he didn't know or rather didn't think that far ahead.

Bonney didn't respond she just stared intently at him for what seemed like ages. Zoro didn't know if she had taken him seriously or not, but he stared back at her meeting her glare with one of his own. If he showed any sign of weakness she would immediately figure out he was bluffing, that was not something he was about to let happen. Though it wasn't easy as he could feel himself grow more and more embarrassed with each second staring at the woman who was completely naked in front of him. Though he couldn't actually see anything due to the bubbles but that did nothing to ease the embarrassment the man who would become the future greatest swordsman in all the seas was feeling.

They continued glaring at each other both of them showing no signs of letting up creating an eerie silence that would cause anyone who walked in to flee in fear. The silence was broken by uncontrollable laughter. "What? What is so funny?" The swordsman barked irritated by the woman's sudden outburst.

"You don't really expect me to believe that do you?" She said calming her laughter. "If you were going to steal my ship wouldn't it have made more sense to do it before we returned instead of taking a nap in my bathtub?" Hints of laughter still traceable in her voice. "If you had to make something up you'd have been better off saying that your crew left you behind and you were just looking for a free ride." She suggested bursting out into laughter again at the thought.

'_What an annoying woman._' He thought giving a grunt and quickly turning away attempting to hide the look of defeat and shame on his face.

Amidst her laughter she noticed that he turned away from her. "What's wrong? Don't tell me I guessed right." She asked still chuckling.

Zoro closed his eyes and clenched his teeth giving no response. It was embarrassing enough to admit that he got left behind to himself, but to have this woman ignorantly make him a joke because of it was too much really pushing his limits.

"Hey come on now don't be like that." Bonney said with a mocking tone. "The least you could do is tell me why you're on my ship." She sighed after receiving no response. "Oh I know," She said with a devious grin. "You came to confess your undying love to me. That must be it, you've fallen madly in love with me after I saved you back there. Such a heart-warming tale, the little sister saves her big brother from certain death and he falls in love with her, it brings a tear to my eye." Her over emphasizing and bits of laughter throughout made it clear she was enjoying this quite a bit.

Zoro's eye began to twitch, this woman was clearly a few things loose in her head. '_What the hell is she saying? She's insane, she has to be to insane. This woman is a nutcase. Why, of all the ships did it have to be this woman's that I ended up on? If I ever see that bastard again I'll give him a piece of my mind, I don't care whose first mate he was._' His thoughts were swirling around as he grew increasingly annoyed.

Giving a heavy sigh she decided she was done tormenting him. "You know, you really need to lighten up. Really it was all in good fun, learn to laugh a little." Closing her eyes she leaned he head back against the edge of the tub.

The room was silent after that for quite some time, it wasn't an awkward or strange silence, it was just silence. Neither of them made any movement nor seemed to acknowledge the other was there, Bonney's face still facing the ceiling against the tub and Zoro still standing in the same spot with his arms crossed. Eventually the silence was broken by yet more laughter, however this time the laughter came from the swordsman.

Bonney lifted her head up and opened an eye. "See? Doesn't it feel good to let loose once in while? If you're serious all the time you'll have to worry about wrinkles." She said to the man who was laughing hysterically, not that she had to worry about wrinkles.

He turned around, his eye was twitching more then earlier, his face completely red with what could be anger or embarrassment. "_**WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR HEAD? HOW WAS ANY OF THAT REMOTELY FUNNY?!**_" He barked finally letting out all of his bottled anger out.

Bonney gave him a blank stare for a few seconds before cracking a smile and bursting into laughter.

Finally able to think straight he thought for a second that maybe she was right and he was too serious. Shortly after he joined her in her laughter, though not exactly sure why he just couldn't hold back.

They laughed and laughed for what seemed like ages. Neither knew precisely why, but they both knew that they were enjoying the short laugh.

Bonney was the one who stopped laughing first. She stared at the swordsman seriously, glancing over him and simply said. "Alright."

Zoro ceased his laughter as well and gave her a questioning look unsure of what she was getting at.

"Look, I don't know why you tried to stow away on my ship since you don't seem to want to talk about it, but I can tell you don't have any ill intentions so I don't mind if you want to stay for a while."

He was shocked, perhaps he'd gotten the wrong image of the girl. He'd never expected that she'd just welcome him aboard like this. He didn't respond just stared with an expression that was a mixture of relief, amazement, and disbelief.

"Hey now, don't get the wrong idea or anything." She said noticing his expression. "I'm only doing this because it will put you and your crew in my debt. That could end up being useful to me sometime down the road, so don't go thinking I decided to do this just because I like you or anything." Her face grew a light shade of red.

The swordsman smiled and let out a small chuckle.

"And just what do you find so amusing?"

"It's nothing. I just realized I got the wrong impression of you earlier." Bonney raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Back on the island you told me it's absurd for a pirate to help others but now you're letting me, a stow away, stay aboard you ship as a guest. You're a much nicer person than you try to put on."

She hesitated "Don't say such stupid things." She paused after that and looked away. Her mood changed from happy to filled with sorrow and regret. "The life of a pirate...is a difficult one. There are...very few people you can trust. In the end it's best to only look out for each other and let everyone deal with their own problems. You never know who...might..."

"Now that I think about it I should let you finish your bath." He interrupted realizing he'd opened old wounds by saying something he probably shouldn't have. He decided it was best to leave her alone for now. He turned and started walking towards the door.

"Wait." Zoro turned around to face her. "If you go out now it'll just cause a big ruckus with the crew. Just wait for me to finish that way I can go out with you and explain to them that you're my guest." She explained back in her normal tone wanting to avoid any unnecessary conflict.

"That does make sense, but..." Zoro trailed off.

"But what?"

"You expect me to just stand in here while you bathe?" He asked bluntly, looking away.

A look of realization came across her face as if she'd only just noticed she'd been in the bath the whole time. "Y-you know you bring up a very good point." She stuttered her face completely red with embarrassment. "So you can go stand in the corner until I'm done."

Zoro's jaw dropped. "_**I"M NOT AN INFANT!**_" He barked protesting to being sent to timeout.

"Listen it's either that or--"

She was interrupted by a scream that came from out on the deck. Without hesitation she stood up revealing her body, the embarrassment that she had a second ago was nowhere in sight. Stepping out of the tub she rushed as fast she could and put her clothes on. "You wait here, got it?" She ordered Zoro as she ran out of the room to see what was going on.

"Tch. Just wait here? she says." He asked himself pondering her words. "What if it's something really bad and they need my help, what then? Just wait here? By the time I find out it could be too late." He continued conversing with himself. "But more importantly, that damn woman could've at least given me a warning before doing that." He yelled referring to his face which was painted an embarrassing shade of red.

oOoOoOoOoOo

"N-no way. This isn't possible." She exclaimed as she look down from the deck in shock her hands gripping the rail guard tightly.

A man stood down below in the middle of the deck, members of her crew scattered along the edges. "Ah good, the captain's here. I have a very important question I've come to ask. I was just about to ask your crew here, but now that you're here there's no need for that."

She recognized the attire the man sported as should any pirate that values their own life. The coat the man wore was none other than the coat of a Marine Admiral.

Regaining her composure she answered the man. "I assume you're Kizaru?" She'd never seen an Admiral in person before, but she'd heard that Kizaru was the Admiral sent to clean up the Archipelago. "Just what is you want to ask?"

"My my, you certainly are knowledgeable. Though you don't seem the type who wants to stray off subject, so I'll get right to the point. But first I should let you know if you want what's best for you and your crew I suggest you answer this question carefully." His voice changed from playful and sly to dark and grim. "Because if you lie I won't hesitate to kill everyone on board."

Sweat dripped down her face, there were so many questions running through her mind at once. '_How did he get on board? There's no ships around and the edge of the island is so distant, it's still visible, but nobody should've been able to catch up with us. No, it doesn't matter if it was possible or not this man somehow did and I have to figure something out fast or else it's over for all of us._' She pulled herself from her thoughts still unsure of the situation. "A-alright," she stuttered, she couldn't hide that her nerves were getting the best of her. "Why did you come here? What did you want to ask? I-I give you my word, I won't lie."

"Well I must say that is reassuring," his voice changed back to his normal sly devilish tone. "But forgive me if I don't trust the word of pirate scum such as yourself." She bit her lip growing more and more impatient and nervous. "Now then let's get down to business. I'm looking for a certain man. This particularly man assaulted my poor nephew and that is something I cannot forgive. You wouldn't have seen him have you? You might know him as the first mate of the Strawhat Pirates," Bonney's eyes grew wide as he finally stated the reason he was there. "Roronoa Zoro."

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**A/N:** So, I hope you guys enjoyed it and that I didn't make things too hard to understand. Like I said up top, this is my first work and I know my writing isn't great, so I really do apologize if I made anything hard to understand. I've noticed after rereading it several times that my biggest problem (that I can see at least) is that everything seems to happen way too fast. But I honestly have absolutely no idea how I can improve that in any way, so again I apologize if that caused confusion for anyone.

Anyway I really didn't think it would take me this long to write one chapter. It took me a little over 3 weeks to write just this. I guess it's to be expected though since I don't have much free time, which is obviously the only time I can write. So, I guess you can expect the next chapter in that time frame if everything goes well. Though I also hadn't intended for this chapter to be so long, so maybe that has something to with it. Then again maybe the length of every other chapter will exceed my expectations as well. Writing is a lot harder then I thought it would be.

I've got the entire story planned out and if everything goes the way I'm hoping (which it probably won't, but it doesn't hurt to hope), it should be 4-5 chapters in total when finished. Though I'm not going to promise anything since I'd originally intended this chapter to go a little further, but decided to end it here since it was already way longer then I'd thought it would be.

Also, I think I should clarify that I've seen a thousand different ways to translate "vivre card." I don't think there's been an official translation for it yet so I just picked one.

And one last thing, Bonney's first mate (I'm assuming it's the large guy who's almost always in the same scene as Bonney and is often wearing sunglasses) plays a rather important role in this, well it's not really that important, but I do feel it's important enough for me to point this out. Anyway since he hasn't been given a name yet I'm just going to be referring to him with generic terms because I don't want to give him one (because that could end up causing confusion later, plus I'm not creative enough to think of a decent name for him). I just thought I'd point that out so you guys know who I'm referring to, even though I guess it's not really necessary.

Well that's all I can think of, so thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my first work. And please leave a review I'd really like to see what everyone thinks. Did I do a good job for someone who's just entered the world of fanfiction? Should I continue? Should I stop? Did my bad writing ruin your eyesight? (well I hope it's not _that_ bad.) Anyway I'm hoping to have the next chapter finished within the next 3-4 weeks or sooner, so see you then. :D


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